Ugly Kid Joe - As Ugly As They Wanna Be (1991)^{Release ID: 4475}

The debut E.P. from this Californian band would see them set the world alight for a short period, primarily off the back of the massive hit single "Everything About You" which was played to death in my high school days. For that reason, "As Ugly As They Wanna Be" was never far from my ears as a teenager so when I noticed that it was on the Metal Academy database under "Funk Metal" I thought it might be fun to see how it's aged. I certainly didn't remember Ugly Kid Joe being a metal band per se so I was curious to see whether they might be yet another supposed "funk metal" band that would provide further proof for my existing opinion that the subgenre isn't really justified.

I was never a fan of Ugly Kid Joe if I'm being honest so I wasn't ever really expecting that I'd rediscover a long lost love for "As Ugly As They Wanna Be" & I'm glad that was the case because I found the first four tracks to be pretty flat, particularly "Everything About You" which I quickly discovered I harbor a burning hatred for these days. It's only the last three tracks that see my interest being peaked with the cover version of Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" being the heaviest number & the clear highlight. Funk metal number "Funky Fresh Country Club" is also pretty entertaining, as is the frantic 25 seconds of speed metal closer "Heavy Metal". It's just a shame that the first half of the release was so uninteresting really as the tracklisting never manages to recover.

"As Ugly As They Wanna Be" is often tagged as a hard rock & funk metal hybrid although I beg to differ (I know... big surprise there). There's really aren't any tracks that I'd suggest allign with the classic hard rock model here. Instead, we see numbers like "Madman", "Too Bad" & "Everything About You" possessing a much sleazier & more poppy sound that directly aligns itself with 80's glam metal as far as I can see. There's just enough metal on show to qualify for the Academy too though in my opinion. I'm just not sure that there's enough "funk" metal as such with only "Whiplash Liquor" & "Funky Fresh Country Club" taking that direction. That leaves me in a quandry about what would be a better tag though as there isn't another metal subgenre that's better represented here so perhaps I should just let it go.

"As Ugly As They Wanna Be" isn't terrible but it's certainly pretty disposable & lacking in substance. There's no doubt the band can play & front man Whitfield Crane has a decent set of pipes on him but I can't say that I ever feel like this E.P. has the potential to command additional airings in the future. If you live for bands like Extreme, Electric Boys & Living Colour then you may disagree but I'm sure that there must be better material out there for you than this uninteresting record that's resigned itself to the annuls of history through a dated sound & a lack of focus & ambition. I'm afraid teenage girls have other things to listen to these days.